Justin Timberlake: new album, no charity

Click here if you missed my post the other day about Shriners Hospitals for Children breaking up with Justin Timberlake ostensibly because he “disappeared”. Curiously, veteran entertainment reporter Roger Friedman used the same word - “disappeared” - today in an article about the Justin Timberlake Foundation. According to Friedman, it has a “zero balance”. And it wasn’t all that generous to begin with. Oh stop. Do you know how time-consuming it is, being a proper Actor, and not singing because of all the acting?

No, but wait.

The singing...

Apparently he’s coming back with the singing.

Friedman is also reporting exclusively that Pipsy has been secretly recording a new album with Timbaland. It’s for Sony and will be released early next year. The project is being kept super tight, and will be produced quickly, perhaps as many as “a dozen new tracks”. Friedman is describing it as “low profile”. I’m not actually sure what this means. Justin Timberlake is one of the most successful recording artists of this era. How can a new album, his first in 6 years, be considered “low profile”? I can’t articulate exactly why I’m suspicious but it’s there, a suspicion. That somehow it’s not quite about the music but a way to use the music to con us into caring about him as a f-cking Actor again. Maybe I’m wrong. It’s probable. But between the famewhoring shenanigans of his fiancée, to the arrogant “I’M AN ACTOR”-ing he’s been forcing on us, and all of it underlined by the intolerable attitude he throws around like he knows better and best, it’s become so hard to TRUST Justin Timberlake’s work -- do you believe it to be a true manifestation of his talent, or is it just more fuel for his ego?

Click here to read Roger Friedman’s report on JT’s undercover new album and here to read his report on Timberlake’s philanthropic shortcomings.

Attached - JT golfing at the Shriners in Vegas yesterday, his final tournament with the organisation. Former NSYNCer Chris Kirkpatrick was there too as one of few celebrities who attended the event (though it appears no one cared enough to photograph him). How much did it bite Justin’s ass that he had to be associated with his old boyband mate?